


Again For The First Time

by raendown



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: After being thrown back in to the past by an unknown force Tobirama has a week to figure out hownotto kill Izuna.





	Again For The First Time

A week wasn’t much time to plan something this big. Ideally he would have gone back to a point much earlier in the past but he hadn’t been the one to throw himself back in time so he supposed he shouldn’t complain too much about this unexpected boon. Question it, sure, obviously he was going to question what had happened and why and how. But he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Remembering that everyone around him would not have the same memories he did was difficult at times. Tobirama found himself asking his brother questions that made the older man look at him funny, each of these incidents followed by fast talking and whatever diversion he could think of to throw the other off his scent. At this age Hashirama had not yet married a master of the sealing arts, had not yet picked up helpful little tidbits even without knowing he had. He also hadn’t had years of living in the same village with the Uchiha to help predict what their reaction patterns would be. All either of them should know at this point, fresh in to their twenties with the world ahead of them, was battle.

It was sad to think about but that was the life they had lived and Tobirama had never thought to question it until he lived it all again.

The day he dreaded arrived far more quickly than he wanted it to and still he had no plan in mind. Obviously the course of the future was already changed just having him here, all he needed to do was not kill Izuna and things were different, but whether or not they would be better was a whole other question. Whether he could ever break the cycle of war with Izuna still up and fighting fit was a giant question mark in his mind that he had no answer for. And having no answers had always been Tobirama’s greatest fear.

Some thought him fearless. Other thought him cruel. Hashirama had always thought he created the Edo Tensei out of a misguided attempt to see their brothers again. None of them had ever understood. Fear of the great unknown, the parts of life for which he had no answers, those were the thoughts that brought him awake in a cold sweat when the witching hour passed.

Now here he stood across the battlefield from a great unknown and Tobirama, in a word, panicked. He could not kill this man but neither could he let him live. The only path forward from here was to subdue him. With decades more knowledge than he should have knocking around inside his mind Tobirama clashed blades with his old rival once more after years apart and did as he had the day he died the first time. He followed his instincts. Made a plan on the fly when no better options presented themselves. Only this time it turned out much better than it did the last time.

Izuna’s scream when Tobirama infused his leg with lightning chakra was more rage than pain, both limbs already numb from the first touch. He crumpled to the earth in an instant and Tobirama stepped back out of range, his own weapon lowered respectfully. When Hashirama and Madara landed between them he very carefully did not flinch from either of their gazes, his brother’s more stunned and curious than angry. He hadn’t mastered lightning released until he was twenty-seven; this was something he shouldn’t know.

“What did you _do_?” Izuna demanded even as his own brother took a defensive stance in front of him.

“Disabled your legs. It’s very simple, actually. The human nervous system is basically one big electrical circuit. All I did was overload it.” Tobirama blinked slowly, coaching his expression to stay utterly blank.

“You fucker!”

“Oh hush, the feeling will come back in a few hours.” He waited for that to sink in, that he had chosen to disable rather than go for the kill, before speaking again. “But I can do it again. And again and again. I can move faster than you could ever dream of, Izuna, and I will steal the legs right out from under you as many times as it takes for you to get the point.”

Madara was staring at him with suspiciously wide eyes and Hashirama had stars in his own but Izuna snarled.

“What fucking point?”

“_I don’t want to fight you_.”

His words almost seemed to echo across the battlefield. The rest of their clans raged on unaware of what was happening but here between the four of them existed a small pocket of silence that felt like it lasted for an eternity. It was broken only when Hashirama laid a hand on his shoulder and Tobirama turned to see his brother with a smile he could never remember earning in his first life. A smile of approval. A smile of pride.

“My friend”-Hashirama turned to Madara with one hand outstretched-“did we not dream together of a day when we could protect both of our little brothers from harm? We can make that happen.”

“I suppose we could…”

“Are you serious? Don’t trust them aniki!” Izuna struggled to reach out and crawl his way up Madara's form but the older man stood firm.

When they lived this moment the first time it was Izuna who had swayed him, dying and whispering poison with his last breaths. But Tobirama got it _right_ this time. He felt it in the way Madara's eyes couldn’t seem to tear themselves away from him even as he stepped away from the vitriol his brother was spouting and reached out to take the hand Hashirama offered.

“I could be convinced to remember old dreams,” he said. “Meet me here in two weeks with your demands for a peace treaty and I will bring mine.”

“Oh! Oh Madara! You’ve made me so hap-!”

“Bring your little brother.”

“What?” Three voices at once all asked the same question, each with more confusion than the last.

Incredibly, Madara's smile was almost shy as he cleared his throat. “You have…my interest, Senju. We’ll see if you keep it.”

Tobirama couldn’t know it then, could not predict the future when he had lived a different one, but he’d gotten things more right than he knew. Changed more than he knew. The life he would live from here on out would be different in many ways but one more significant than the rest: he would be happy.


End file.
